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gates to the recent UN Food and Ag

e :
xecutive board. They are left to right, Gui

John Rutka photo

ab riculture Organization’s fishery conference in Vancouver
ove as they attended a lunch reception together with Soviet delegates sponsored by the
llermo Alvarez, Joaquin Fernandez and Andres Mena.

Tenants face rent increases
Gs housing squeeze tightens

By SEAN GRIFFIN

_ Por :

In the ies now, the telephone

been can Council office has

Calls fro Bing constantly with
rent ™ tenants complaining

themashigh ses —_ Some of

Crease of 6 as50 dollars. Anin-

common 30 dollars a month is

It’s an
an old story for the land-

lorg.
- Crea i
and he a housing shortage

aa * back and wat

meny eceister Swell as an
ae nstruction contracts.

Portions, 4S reached crisis pro-

Inc ;
apart oe the vacancy rate for
tW0 pes Shas hovered-around
ih Sa and the rents— ris-
Year. have eae of 7% per
“op, € reflected the short

Ut

dropper the vacancy rate has
to 6% — only six apart-
y 1000 are vacant—

al £0uge is on.
nt Tentals, the owners
aa longer give a
r an on investment,
Company ortage. But yet a
f bee Such as Dawson
Probie arts Ltd. found no
ai realizing a profit in-
anuary $1 ot € period ending

Tee inever
the rent

a
co p Ttme

85% over the same

period in 1972.

On January 17 of this year, the
B.C. Tenant’s organization sent
an eight-man delegation headed
by president Bruce Yorke to Vic-
toria outlining a number of de-
mands, notably. the establish-
ment of rental review boards in
every municipality, and legisla-
tion making landlords give
“just cause”’ for evictions.

Attorney-general Alex Mac-
Donald gave a “‘very definite
impression”’ at the time that he
would introduce legislation in
the session beginning January 25
to guarantee those basic rights
to tenants. He also expressed
surprise that there was no
legislation to force landlords to
justify evictions.

The B.C.T.O. went to Victoria
again on Tuesday — to see
what happened to the indi-
cations given by MacDonald and
to the election promises of the
NDP. And they went with a new
demand: that the provincial
government move into housing
programs to end the housing
shortage deliberately created
by the apartment owners.

Apartment owners blame

shortage on tenant militancy

He just can’t afford the rent. |

God isn’t dead.

and uncertainty about legisla-
tion giving tenants bargaining
rights with landlords. “This has
contributed to a virtual cessa-
tion of rental housing accom-
modation,”’ said Dick Richards,
president of Pacific Apartment
Managers Association, mem-
bers of which operate some
18,000 rental suites.

But the real facts reveal some-
thing quite different. Under
new federal tax legislation, pro-
fessional people who own many
of the frame-style apartments
in the urban areas, are no longer
able to depreciate their apart-
ments by considerable amounts
each year and then subtract the
depreciation from their per-
sonal income tax.

Inevitably, tomake up the dif-
ference, they pass it on wher-
ever they can— in this case, the
tenant. And since some of these
owners are carrying whopping
big second mortgages at 18 to 20
percent, the rent increases that
they load on the tenants are fre-
quently substantial.

And big apartment owners
can only benefit from a housing
shortage. It enables them to
rent any accommodation
whether it meets certain stand-
ards or not — and at whatever
rent the market will bear.

It gives them a club to hold
over the tenants to prevent
them from achieving decent
rental conditions and rights.

The only answer, Say the
tenants, is for the provincial
government to move into the
housing field and respond to the
acute shortages created by the
apartment owners by building
thousands of units of public hous-
ing.

Public housing can be facil-
itated by utilizing sections of
the National Housing Act.
Money can also be made avail-
able to the municipalities and
the city for housing projects.

mand protection against
abusive increases in rent,
against unjust evictions and the
removal of the rental grievance
procedure from the hands of the

d courts.

In the meantime the tenants de-

While Mineral Act changes
introduced in the Legislature
this week will undoubtedly
tighten government controls
over operation of the industry,
it falls far short of giving the
people of this Province the kind
of financial return they .are
entitled to from B.C.’s Number
Two industry. This is the first
major overhaul of the Act in 80
years.

The amendments, known as
Bill 44, will:

1) Require mining companies
to obtain cabinet approval before
starting production. Approval,
in turn, will require proof that
(a) the operation is economi-
cally viable; (b) it is ecologi-
cally reclaimable and meets
safety standards; and (c) is the
best method of production.

2) Provide some steps in the
direction of increased Canadian
control.

And, 3) Permit the govern-
ment to go into parternship with
private enterprise. Nothing
very revolutionary about that;
as reaction of the big mining
monopolies confirms.

On the primary question of
resource policy in mining indus-
try (no less than gas and oil,
lumber, etc.) the matter of an

By NIGEL MORGAN

increased return from resource
useage (much of it by foreign
corporations) is not answered.

B.C.’s rich mineral wealth
belongs to the citizens of B.C.,
yet with a total production of
$526 millions in 1971, govern-
ment revenues from the mining
industry (including gas and
petroleum) amounted to only
$57 million. And out of that the
government expended over $7
million in services.

And to top it all off, over $400
million worth of B.C. mineral
production, as well as the jobs
they could have provided went to
foreign countries in the form of

concentrates or ingots for
processing and manufacture.
Increasing the Canadian

composition of boards of direc-
tors of mining corporations
operating in B.C. to 50 percent,
and the cost of a free miner’s
license to $20, while necessary,
falls far short of what is required
to provide the hundred thou-
sand new jobs B.C. needs, and
tax relief the people expect and
are entitled to.

Strong public pressure is
required to compel the new
government get a better return:
from development of the prov-
ince’smineral resources. Multi-
national mining corporations
have been allowed for too long to

extract and export irre-
placeable resources while
paying very little to the people
for their exploitation.

It is time the government took
firm steps to reclaim control
over their development and
processing. Crown corpora-
tions should be formed to
promote their exploration and
utilization wherever private
interests refuse to do so ona
basis beneficial to the people of
B.C. Meanwhile, highly profit-
able mining companies and pro-
moters should be compelled to
disgorge more of their rich loot
taken from this province — pay
much heavier royalties and
taxes to the government trea-
sury.

Tenants plan rally

Tenants from all over the lower mainland have been called toa
rally Sunday at two o'clock to hear a full report on the results of the
tenants lobby to Victoria Tuesday, March 6. The rally is sponsored

by the B.C. Tenants Organization.
Burrard, :

NDP MLA for
Rosemary Brownand Alderman

ROSEMARY BROWN

Harry Rankin will address the
meeting to be held in the Iron-
workers Hall at Eighth and
Columbia.

The rally is intended to spear-
head a campaign for action on
the part of both provincial and
city governments to stabilize
rents which have skyrocketted
as a result of a severe housing
shortage deliberately created
by apartment owners in an
attempt to put pressure on
governments to halt any tenant
legislation.

Also to be discussed in the
meeting are proposals for a cam-
paign to get both levels of govern-
ment involved in public housing
projects to relieve the strangle-

- hold private developers pre-

sently hold on housing construc
tion.

PACIFIC TRIBUNE—FRIDAY, MARCH 9, 1973-——PAGE 3